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Dominique Crenn’s Beet Tartare With Vadouvan Yogurt Recipe

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Apr 13, 2022 • 5 min read

Chef Dominique Crenn swaps raw beef for salt-roasted beets in this reimagination of the traditional French appetizer. Learn how to make Chef Crenn’s beet tartare at home for a special occasion.

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About Dominique Crenn

Dominique Crenn is an award-winning chef and advocate for sustainability and equity in the culinary world. Growing up in the Brittany region in northwest France, Chef Crenn spent many hours working in her grandmother’s potato fields, foraging for mushrooms with her father and brother, and partaking in her family’s Sunday dinners. Her father’s best friend, a restaurant critic in Brittany, sometimes brought her along on his tasting trips. These experiences sparked her imagination and taught Chef Crenn to think of cooking as a form of storytelling. All of these memories, and the familial and communal love they evoked, would become touchstones in her cooking.

Though she is now among the world’s most celebrated chefs, her path to culinary greatness was not without its challenges. After being turned away from many French culinary schools due to antiquated opinions about female chefs, Chef Crenn set out for California, where she forged her own culinary identity rooted in personhood, memories, and mindfulness.

In San Francisco, Chef Crenn honed her skills at fine dining establishments before eventually opening her own restaurant, Atelier Crenn, in 2011 (named for her father’s painting studio in Brittany). Atelier Crenn’s reputation grew year by year: It received one Michelin star in 2011, two in 2012, and finally, the highest honor of three stars in 2018. At the restaurant, diners receive a poem instead of a menu, with each dish represented by a line of poetry. Chef Crenn describes her practice of tying food to language as “poetic culinaria.”

About Dominique Crenn’s Beet Tartare

There’s a little joke here in the preparation of beet tartare, rather than beef tartare, but there’s also a sincere notion of taking vegetables as seriously as meat. The beets are salt-crusted and roasted in a technique that draws moisture out slowly, concentrating the flavors while distributing the heat evenly. The final product is velvety and intense, with a salty-sweetness evocative of caramel, along with the natural muskiness of beets. Beet flavor tends to be fairly consistent across varieties, even though beets can range in color from white to gold to deep red (and even have a bull’s-eye pattern). When it comes to preparing the brightest-colored varieties, gloves are a good idea, but they’re not required.

One traditional plating of steak tartare involves nestling a raw egg yolk into the center of the beef mixture. Chef Crenn achieves a similar visual effect by nestling a dollop of vadouvan yogurt in the diced beets. (The yogurt gets its yellow color from the turmeric in the vadouvan spice blend, a French curry powder.)

3 Tips for Making Dominique Crenn’s Beet Tartare

Chef Dominique Crenn’s beet tartare is a stunning appetizer that vegetarians and omnivores alike will devour. Here’s how to make it shine:

  1. 1. Use red beets. Beets come in many colors, but they all taste the same. However, to produce the trompe l’oeil effect of this dish, choose dark red beets, which look the most like raw beef.
  2. 2. Invest in a mandoline. A mandoline is a handheld tool with a sharp blade that allows you to make quick, precise slices. If you don’t already have one, consider investing in the tool. Mandolines are affordable, take up minimal space in the kitchen, and are the best way to achieve the tiny dice required for this recipe.
  3. 3. Substitute curry powder for vadouvan spices. Vadouvan is a spice blend popular in France. Like many spice blends, the exact components vary between purveyors and households. Still, turmeric is a constant and gives the vadouvan yogurt its rich color, reminiscent of raw egg yolk. Use your favorite turmeric-based curry powder if you can’t find vadouvan spices.

Beet Tartare With Vadouvan Yogurt Recipe by Dominique Crenn

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1 Ratings | Rate Now

makes

prep time

1 hr

total time

2 hr 35 min

cook time

1 hr 35 min

Ingredients

For the salt-crusted beets:

For the beet tartare:

For the vadouvan yogurt:

For the beet juice vinaigrette:

For serving:

Make the salt-crusted beets:

  1. 1

    Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

  2. 2

    Wash the whole beets, leaving the skin on. Set them aside.

  3. 3

    In a medium bowl, mix together the salt, flour, and oil.

  4. 4

    Slowly incorporate the water while mixing with a spoon until a paste forms.

  5. 5

    Use your hands to cover each of the clean beets in a thick crust of the flour mixture, up to a ½-inch thick.

  6. 6

    Press each of the encrusted beets between your hands to ensure that the mixture sticks.

  7. 7

    Roast the beets in a roasting pan until they’re easily pierced with a knife, about 75 minutes.

  8. 8

    Remove the salt-crusted beets from the oven and let them cool slightly in the pan, about 15 minutes.

  9. 9

    Use a wooden spoon or mallet to crack open the salt crust, then brush away the excess salt stuck to the beets after removing the crust.

  10. 10

    If you’re using gloves, put them on, then use a paper towel to rub off the skins from the beets.

Make the beet tartare:

  1. 1

    Set a mandoline to 5 millimeters, and carefully slice one kilogram of the salt-crusted beets. (If you have leftover beets, save them for another purpose.)

  2. 2

    Use a sharp knife to brunoise the slices: Cut the slices into 3-millimeter matchsticks, turn them 90 degrees, then slice the matchsticks again crosswise.

  3. 3

    Season the cut beets with lemon juice, kosher salt, and pepper to taste. Set the beets aside.

Make the vadouvan yogurt:

  1. 1

    In a medium pot, add the grapeseed oil and vadouvan spices, and bring the mixture to a simmer.

  2. 2

    Once you have achieved a simmer, take the pot off the heat and let it cool until it comes to room temperature.

  3. 3

    Place a chinois or strainer lined with a coffee filter over a medium bowl.

  4. 4

    Strain the seasoned vadouvan oil, and discard the spices left in the coffee filter.

  5. 5

    Combine the vadouvan oil and Greek yogurt.

  6. 6

    Season the mixture with fleur de sel or kosher salt, lemon juice, and herbs to taste.

  7. 7

    Cover and refrigerate the yogurt until you’re ready to serve.

Make the beet juice vinaigrette:

  1. 1

    Don gloves if using, then peel the beets.

  2. 2

    Juice the peeled beets in a juicer, then transfer the juice to a medium saucepan.

  3. 3

    Cook the juice over medium heat, stirring often, until the volume is reduced by half, about 15 minutes.

  4. 4

    Be sure to stir all the way to the bottom of the pot to prevent scorching or uneven cooking.

  5. 5

    Season to taste with the vinegars, oils, and shallots.

Plate and serve the dish:

  1. 1

    Place the beet mixture in a circle on the center of each plate.

  2. 2

    Make a divot in the center of the beet mixture with a spoon, then scoop in the yogurt.

  3. 3

    Garnish with the microgreens.

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